This disclosure relates generally to online systems, and more specifically to presenting content to users of an online system.
Online systems, such as social networking systems, allow online system users to connect to and to communicate with other online system users. Users may create profiles on an online system that are tied to their identities and include information about the users, such as interests and demographic information. The users may be individuals or entities such as corporations or charities. Online systems allow users to easily communicate and to share content with other users by providing content items to an online system for presentation to the other users. Content items provided to an online system by a user may include declarative information about the user, status updates, check-ins to locations, images, photographs, videos, text data, or any other information the user wishes to share with additional users of the online system. An online system may also generate content items for presentation to a user, such as content items describing actions taken by other users on the online system.
Many online systems allow users (e.g., businesses) to sponsor presentation of content on an online system to gain public attention for a user's products or services or to persuade other users to take an action regarding the user's products or services. Content for which an online system receives compensation in exchange for presenting to users is referred to as “sponsored content.” Additionally, many online systems receive compensation from a user for presenting online system users with certain types of sponsored content provided by the user. Frequently, online systems charge a user for each presentation of a sponsored content item to an online system user or for each interaction with a sponsored content item by an online system user. For example, an online system receives compensation from an entity each time a content item provided by the user is displayed to another user on the online system or each time another user is presented with a content item on the online system and interacts with the content item (e.g., selects a link included in the content item), or each time another user performs another action after being presented with the content item (e.g., visits a physical location associated with the user who provided the content item).
Online systems often apply criteria associated with content items upon identifying an opportunity to present content to a user of an online system to identify online system users who are most likely to be interested in being presented with the content items. Such “targeting” criteria are often specified to an online system by a user that submits a content item to the online system for presentation to other users. Targeting criteria allow the online system to identify users eligible to be presented with a content item based on characteristics associated with the users. For example, content items associated with a particular restaurant may be associated with targeting criteria describing users who have indicated an interest in the restaurant by frequently checking in to the same or a similar restaurant via the online system, users whose profile information on the online system includes dining out as an interest or hobby, and users who have indicated a preference for a page about the restaurant on the online system. Hence, targeting criteria allow an online system to identify users who are most likely to be interested in being presented with a particular content item as eligible to receive the content item.
Some content items presented by an online system are naturally more relevant to certain users than to other users based on physical locations associated with the content items and the users. For example, content items describing a museum having a physical location in a particular city are more likely to be relevant to users who are visiting the physical location or an area near the physical location than to users who are in a distant area of the city or who are in a different city. As such, targeting criteria associated with content items provided to an online system often include information describing physical locations associated with the content items and a distance relative to the physical locations for identifying users eligible to be presented with the content items by the online system. For example, targeting criteria associated with content items describing the museum of the previous example may specify online system users determined to have a current or recent physical location at or within a specified distance of the museum are eligible to receive the content items. An online system may apply such targeting criteria by determining a location of a client device associated with an online system user and comparing the location of the client device with a physical location associated with a content item. If the client device is determined to be at or within a specified distance from the physical location described by targeting criteria, the online system may determine the user is eligible to receive the content item and present the user with the content item.
However, online systems that apply targeting criteria describing physical locations associated with content items are often required to perform complex, resource-intensive operations on large amounts of data in short periods of time to extract, analyze and process information necessary to determine locations of users relative to the physical locations. These operations must be performed in addition to operations required to identify content items likely to be of interest to a user based on the user's determined location when the online system identifies an opportunity to present content to the user. For example, an online system must receive information describing a geographic location of a client device associated with a user and quickly and accurately analyze the user's location relative to various physical locations associated with various content items to determine whether the user is at or within a threshold distance of any particular physical location. If the user is determined to be at or within a threshold distance of a physical location associated with a content item, the online system must then identify the content item as a candidate content item eligible to be provided to the user based on the user's location. The candidate content item may then be included in a content selection process which requires additional processing time in order to select content items that will be presented to the user.
Failure to perform these operations in a quick and efficient manner may result in user dissatisfaction and alienation. For example, a user may be within a threshold distance of several physical locations associated with various content items for only a short period of time as the user travels through a neighborhood including the physical locations. If the user is not within a threshold distance of a particular physical location associated with a content item when a request for content from the user is received but is at the physical location when the operations are completed, the online system may determine the user is not eligible to receive the content item despite the user's likely interest in the content item. Similarly, the time required to perform the operations may cause an online system to determine a user is eligible to be presented with a content item only after the user is far from a physical location associated with the content item and therefore likely to be less interested in the content item. Hence, conventional application of targeting criteria describing physical locations associated with content items may cause an online system to determine users who would likely be interested in the content items are not eligible to receive the content items and users who would likely not be interested in the content items are eligible to receive the content items, resulting in missed opportunities to present users with meaningful content and subsequent user dissatisfaction and loss of user engagement with the online system. As such, there is a need for improvements that would allow an online system to determine an online system user's location relative to a physical location associated with content presented by the online system in a more quick and efficient manner.